Mr. Clark’s Big Band celebrates the power of music and team camaraderie, of the big heart of a risk-taking teacher, and of a small town which closed ranks to help its children emerge on the other side of grief.
“Endearing and inspiring.” -- Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of In These Girls, Heart is a Muscle
“A timeless story, one that underlines in gold the power of the unsung heroes all around us.”
-- Suzanne Strempek Shea, Author of nine books including This is Paradise
“A warm-hearted story about a charismatic middle school jazz band director ... written with insight and affection.” -- Dr. Steve Raybine, Jazz educator and recording artist
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In Mortified, readers follow Maggie Kelly, who attempted to work through her resentment about feeling as though she was being held captive by motherhood and matrimony, by chronicling her exploits in a blog. When her blogging identity was eventually revealed, her husband learned that she’d been writing about him, often in unflattering ways. The raw blogging candidness that made her a hit on the internet ultimately caused her husband heartbreak and humiliation. Mortified compares the relatively recent phenomenon of having private observations publicized on the internet to the various mortifications other characters experienced in the past, none of which were made as wildly public as Maggie’s complaints.